On this day in 1962 Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange was published. Although many do not think it his best novel -- the vote seems to go to Earthly Powers (1980) -- A Clockwork Orange made Burgess internationally famous, largely due to the controversey surrounding the 1971 Stanley Kubrick film. Some found the book prophetic of our social breakdown; some blamed the book for helping to cause that breakdown, or capitalize on it; some dismissed both book and author outright: "Anthony Burgess is a literary smart aleck whose novel, A Clockwork Orange last year achieved a success d'estime with critics like William Burroughs, who mistook his muddle of sadism, teddyboyism, jive talk and Berlitz Russian for social philosophy ... FULL STORY »
